JournaMarketing

Age of Conversation Podcast 6: Bob Glaza

This week's Age of Conversation podcast features Bob Glaza.  In his chapter, Give and Grow, he talks about the value of participating in online conversations outside our own websites.  Bob's in the newspaper business, and I started as a radio guy, so our conversation turned to changes in traditional media, and how the online conversation presents opportunities to media businesses.  You can read more of Bob's thoughts at his blog, One Reader at a Time.

Download/Listen (11 min. MP3)        

Show Notes for Episode 6:

1:00   Value in leaving a comment on other sites
3:00   Personal blogs vs. business blogs
5:00   "Conversation" in traditional media

Thanks to Saurab Bhargava for our theme song, called Conversations.  You can subscribe to the podcast here.

Technorati Tags: Age_of_Conversation, AoC_Podcast

Download/Listen (11 min. MP3)        

Show Notes for Episode 6:

Grow your blog by leaving your blog

If you want to grow your organization's website, Mack Collier of The Viral Garden says you have to spend time away from the site:

But please remember that so much of the growth of your blog is dependent on the amount of time you spend OFF your blog! Your ability to create a vibrant community is dependent on you being a good community member yourself. If visitors become regular readers and commenters at your blog, then you should return the favor by spending time on THEIR blog reading and leaving comments! I advise the companies I discuss blogging with to invest at least half of their 'blogging time' to reading and commenting on other blogs.

The end of his post also includes a good discussion of Return on Investment, and I know a lot of you are facing those kinds of questions from your bosses when you push for more investment of time or money online.

Technorati Tags: nptech, blogging, Mack_Collier,

Telling stories, video, and your organization

The single most important thing you can do for your organization is to continue telling stories, and video is an important part of that. See What's Out There has a wonderful post, which is a spin-off of a magazine article called Telling Moving Stories. The article highlights the American Jewish World Service, an organization that's been using video to tell its stories in creative new ways. These are not the typical, slick fundraising videos. They're stories about the day-to-day work being done by the organization on the ground in far-off parts of the world.

Susan Rosenberg, American Jewish World Service’s director of communications, says these projects are important to the organization because video, more than any other medium, can tell powerful, emotional stories that move supporters and donors to take action. Instead of simply telling potential donors about the organization’s overseas outreach work, it can show them the people it helps and allow them to hear volunteers and those they help in their own words.

Even if you have to hire someone to "cover" your organization like a reporter, on a freelance basis, you should be doing it. It will help you build emotional connections with the people you most need to reach -- and the investment will pay off many times over. (And it's easy, too.)

Technorati Tags: nptech, video, see3, storytelling, communications, PR, marketing

Age of Conversation Podcast 5: Roger Anderson

Roger Anderson might have the coolest resume ever.  He's a business consultant and a public speaker and an author -- and, oh yeah, a molecular biologist. His blog, Modern Magellans, is focused on helping business people map their way in the 21st Century.  And he's written a book on the same topic.  I talked to him about his chapter in the Age of Conversation, "Keeping the Message Consistent."  That doesn't mean everyone's got to be speaking from exactly the same script.

Download/Listen (13 min MP3)
       

Show Notes for Episode 5:
1:45  Marketing is the same, even for technical products
3:30  It's important to keep your message consistent
4:40  "Consistent" messaging doesn't equal "canned" messaging

Thanks to Saurab Bhargava for our theme song, called Conversations.  You can subscribe to the podcast here.

Technorati Tags: Age_of_Conversation, AoC_Podcast

Download/Listen (13 min MP3)
       

Lessons on listening

Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog has five good lessons for professional communicators or marketers. They come from Alan Andeasen, and they all center on the notion that listening is the first part of communicating. To whet your appetite, here are the first two (but go read the rest!):

1. You’re in trouble if you see your product (or your cause) as inherently desireable. It’s not.
2. You’re in trouble if you see lack of success as the target audience’s fault. It’s your fault.

I see these mistakes all the time when I'm talking to people about how they want to communicate for their organizations. Their first priority is to identify their agenda and start pushing it. But that's exactly backwards. You must first identify the agenda of the people you want to communicate with. What are they looking for? What kind of information do they need? What do they care about? Only after you've identified that (by listening to them) can you hope to communicate successfully.

photo courtesy niclindh at flickr

You don't control your message

It seems like retail giant IKEA can always teach us a lesson about online communication. This time, the lesson is that we're never really in control of our message online.

I've written before about IKEA and how the retail chain has benefited from the enthusiasm of its fans. Fan sites for IKEA show the power of telling a consistent, engaging story; and the lessons apply to businesses and nonprofits alike.

Today (via Influx Insights), I ran across another IKEA-related site, with a different lesson for professional communicators. The site is IKEA Hacker, and it's full of creative, playful ideas for putting together IKEA furniture in ways not suggested by the user's manual. There's a book cabinet set into the wall of a hallway, a shoe cabinet used as a laundry hamper, and a desk turned into a mobile workstation.

IKEA is not able to control its message, even though it's selling tangible products. A bookcase isn't just a bookcase, and a desk isn't just a desk. So how much more malleable is your abstract message in the hands of a creative and communicating public? You cannot stop people from examining your organization and making their own judgments. And now, you can't stop them from sharing their judgments with others online.

That's where your online participation comes into play. Your message is in the hands of people you don't even know. But social media tools give you an opportunity to get to know those people. And getting to know them with a conversation is infinitely more effective than trying to shut them up.

Museums telling their stories

Beth Kanter points to a widget that lists a whole bunch of museum podcast feeds. I'm posting it here so you can see the wide range of museums who are providing compelling, engaging content to people online -- and maybe get some ideas of your own.

News flash: opening a Facebook account won't make you rich

Roger Anderson (Modern Magellans) wonders whether Facebook is a waste of time -- especially now that Google will provide an open standard for social media that will work on many other platforms besides Facebook. He points to a survey by Discover Card that says nearly three-quarters of small business owners "feel they get no benefit to their business from networking online."

I share Roger's frustration with Facebook. It's a lot of work to stay involved, and sometimes it feels like information overload from people to whom you're connected. But I'm amused by the results of that Discover Card survey.

I've been in a lot of meetings with people who proudly told me they'd started a MySpace account for their organization; or opened a Facebook profile; or started a blog. But almost none of those people had a plan for ongoing networking in those spaces. They had heard the hype about MySpace or Facebook or blogging, and believed opening an account would lead to big benefits without a lot of work. They are almost certainly among some of the 73-percent of people who think online social networking doesn't pay off.

Even though it's a lot of work, Facebook can be useful because it can help you connect to people with like interests. But it's not necessarily going to be useful, just because you're there. In that way, it's no different from attending a party. We wouldn't count a cocktail party with business contacts as a failure, just because we didn't make a sale on the spot. And we shouldn't count online social networking as a failure simply because we don't see immediate results.

Technorati Tags: facebook, social_networking

Microblogging for your organization: Utterz

Utterz is a new microblogging tool that seems like a very, very useful way for small organizations to provide live coverage of events (fundraisers, legislative hearings, etc.). Pick up your phone and dial in for a voice report -- or email photos and text -- directly to your blog.

Bloggers, sales, and your organization's ideas

Performancing.com makes the case that Bloggers Make Great Sales People.  Even if you don't think you have anything to sell, this is important to you. It makes a lot of sense, because bloggers who are well-established share a lot of traits of people who do a good job of selling.

First, these bloggers are trusted. They have a good
reputation within their niche. Because of their trustworthy reputation,
they can sell much more effectively. Internet users are more likely to
buy from people they trust. It's human nature. . .

Second, bloggers are good at getting repeat visitors.
RSS subscriptions and fresh, new, timely content drives visitors back
to blogs. Also, some bloggers have email lists, which brings in even
more repeat visitors. Repeat visitors is a key to getting sales. It
usually takes a person a couple of exposures of a product before they
buy it.

So what's this have to do with the blog you're maintaining for your organization?  It's important to you because you're selling ideas.  When you offer compelling information that people come to rely on, they begin to trust you.  And the more they trust you, the more they come back to you for future information. 

This is not about capitalizing on the trust you have by selling banner ads to make a little cash.  It's about recognizing that your blog can make you a thought leader in your field, if you make it about your readers, and not about you.  People will trust what you're saying and depend on you -- and the more you show them that you're trustworthy, the more they'll "buy" your ideas. 

Those ideas are really the basis of everything your organization is doing.  The great part about online communications is that you don't have to be actively selling your ideas to get them to spread.


Technorati Tags: nptech, communications, blogging,